The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the...

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The Crusades from the Perspectiveof Byzantium and the Muslim World

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Byzantine Perceptions of Latin Religious “Errors”:Themes and Changes from 850 to 1350

Tia M. Kolbaba

In 1339 Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos (1328–41) sent the bilingual Calabrianmonk Barlaam (ca. 1290–1348) to Avignon. There Barlaam delivered two speeches toPope Benedict XII (1332–42) about the necessity of a united Christian front against theTurks and the ways in which a reunion of the churches might be achieved. To the pope’sdemand that reunion of the churches precede military aid from the West, Barlaam gavethe following reply: “It is not so much difference in dogma that alienates the hearts ofthe Greeks from you, as the hatred that has entered their souls against the Latins,1 becauseof the many great evils that at different times the Greeks have suffered at the hands ofLatins and are still suffering every day. Until this hatred has been removed from them,there cannot be union. In truth, until you have done them some very great benefit,neither will that hatred be dispelled nor will anyone dare to breathe a word to themabout union. . . . Know this too, that it was not the people of Greece that sent me toseek your help and union, but the Emperor alone and secretly. Until help is sent to theseparts, he cannot let his people see that he wants union with you.”2

Barlaam thus highlighted the most obvious impact of the Crusades—especially theFourth Crusade and the Latin occupation of Constantinople from 1204 to 1261—onreligious life and religious literature in Byzantium. Everyone agreed that the union ofthe churches was, in principle, desirable, because everyone knew that Christ’s body, thechurch, should not be dismembered. But the violent conflict of the Crusades andattempts to force papal primacy on Greeks after 1204 meant that few Byzantine church-men could negotiate for such a union with any measure of trust and goodwill. So, too,it comes as no surprise that the most scurrilous, least sophisticated kinds of anti-Latinliterature increased over time. When Constantine Stilbes (fl. 1182–1204) connects hisseventy-five-item list of Latin errors to a list of the atrocities committed in the sack of1204, the connection seems natural.3 Such a reaction makes sense. That the Crusades

1 As do most Greek writers of his time, Barlaam uses the term Latin as a general term for Westerners. I usethe term Latins throughout this paper to refer to Western Europeans who were members of the church thatused Latin as its liturgical language. This does not mean that Byzantines themselves always called Westerners“Latins”; see Alexander Kazhdan’s contribution to this volume.

2 Acta Benedicti XII, 1334–1342, ed. A. L. Tautu, Fontes 3, vol. 8 (Vatican City, 1958), doc. 43. Cited andtranslated in J. Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy (New Brunswick, N.J., 1979), 197–98.

3 J. Darrouzes, “Le memoire de Constantin Stilbes contre les Latins,” REB 21 (1963): 50–100.

[ 118 ] Byzantine Perceptions of Latin Religious “Errors”

led to an increase in the number of virulently anti-Latin texts and in the number ofpeople who agreed with them has been recognized at least since Barlaam’s time.

This study, then, goes beyond that obvious effect to investigate whether the Crusadeshad an impact on more moderate religious texts written by churchmen who negotiatedor debated with the Latins. Because there are many Byzantine responses to the Crusadesin secular texts, from Anna Komnene’s Alexiad to Doukas’ chronicle of the fall of theCity, one might expect to find direct responses to the Crusades in theological literatureas well. But a survey of religious discussions with and polemic against the Latins fromthe middle of the eleventh century through the end of the empire unearthed no reasonedrefutation of the idea of holy war and no theological discourses against such Westerninnovations as the crusade indulgence or monastic knights.4 In short, if the Crusadesaltered religious literature, they did so indirectly. This study attempts to identify suchindirect influence by analyzing some characteristics of Byzantine theological materialcontemporary with the Crusades. The conclusion will return to the question of whetherand how these traits are related to the Crusades.

My primary thesis is that Byzantine religious texts that discuss Western Europeansemphasize different issues at different times. To many historians, such a claim may seemobvious, even trite. After all, the cultural gap between Byzantine East and Latin West;the kinds and degree of contact Byzantines had with Latins; the relative wealth, poverty,military power, and sophistication of the two cultures—all of these things changed im-measurably in a millennium or so. Yet an assumption of eternal verities pervades thehistory of Byzantine religious disagreements with the Western church. For example,many studies assume that the Filioque5 is always the central issue for moderate, reason-able men. But it was not. Concerns changed as the times changed.

Furthermore, when placed in their historical context, the issues raised are often relatedless to the explicit targets of the polemic, the Latins, than to the polemicists themselvesand their world. An issue becomes one of the crucial issues in the Greek theologicalliterature only when it becomes a matter for debate within the Orthodox world. Thisconnection removes the Latins from the center of the picture and reveals the extent towhich debates explicitly about Latins were implicitly about Byzantines. In other words,a difference between Greeks and Latins became a source of anxiety and the subject ofnumerous treatises and debates only when Byzantine opinion was divided. Debatesabout Latin practices and beliefs grew fierce and polarized less because of the intrinsicimportance of the issue being debated than because of fundamental doubts about what

4 Such issues do arise rarely in the unreasonable polemic. See, e.g., Darrouzes, “Memoire,” para. 27, 38,60, 61.

5 Starting in Spain in the 6th century, various Western churches added a phrase to the Nicene Creed. Wherethe creed originally stated, “We believe in the Holy Spirit . . . who proceeds from the Father,” these churchesadded “and the Son” (Latin: Filioque). This addition was accepted in Frankish areas by the 8th century and inRome in the early 11th century. Eastern theologians objected both to the unilateral addition to the creed(which could not, they maintained, be amended without an ecumenical council) and to the theological implica-tions of that addition. Discussions of the theology, including theological polemic from both East and West, canbe found easily. Good introductions: J. Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600–1700): The Christian Tradi-tion 2 (Chicago, 1974), 183–98, and J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes(New York, 1974), 91–94, 180–90.

Tia M. Kolbaba [ 119 ]

it meant to be an orthodox, imperial Christian—what it meant to be, as they wouldhave put it, a pious Roman.6 Negotiations and debates within the Empire of the Romansabout how to distinguish “us” from “them” were not new in the tenth, or even theeighth, century. From the beginning, Christians were defining themselves against othergroups, distinguishing “followers of Christ” from “Jews”; “Orthodox” from Arians,Nestorians, and Monophysites; righteous and orthodox venerators of icons from hereti-cal iconoclasts. None of these distinctions between “us” and “them” was established ina day or even in a decade. All of them took some time and caused some casualties. Somepeople who considered themselves orthodox Christians had to be thrown out of thechurch; the tares could not, after all, be allowed to grow with the wheat. In the periodof the Crusades, it became important to distinguish “us” Christians of the empire from“them” Latins from the West. But that distinction did not come easily, either. Peopleargued about it for centuries, and their arguments can be partially reconstructed fromthe materials studied here.

The second part of this study discusses the tone of anti-Latin texts. This, too, changesover time, but the change is not a simple descent from moderate, intelligent discussionto hateful, radical polemic. Moderate works exist and exert some influence down to theend, revealing a growing ambivalence about Latin culture and the western world.

What this study presents as a matter-of-fact outline still has gaps, and other scholarswho study these texts will correct and refine it on points of detail and interpretation.Still, it is time to attempt a survey of the theological literature from these centuriesprecisely because a great body of work makes it possible to do so with some assurance.We need to draw together what we already know before we can make further progress.The current level of knowledge owes much to the works of Jean Darrouzes, Joseph Gill,and a long list of other scholars. The sources cited below should indicate my debt totheir erudition and painstaking labor. Darrouzes noted thirty-two years ago that “thehistory of dogma can only profit from a more exact knowledge of historical context.”7

He spent most of his life establishing that context, and his work especially has taught usa great deal about which issues dividing East and West were important in which period.Without it, this study would be impossible.

Changing Issues

The Ninth CenturyPhotios (patriarch of Constantinople, 858–867 and 877–886) introduces this study,

but not because anyone accepts that the “Photian Schism” was permanent and irrevoca-ble; Francis Dvornik refuted that idea fifty years ago. Rather, Photios’ era can reveal the

6 Vocabulary is a problem here—these were debates about what it meant to be Byzantine and Orthodox.Still, we need to keep in mind that these are modern terms; people at the time called themselves “Romans,”“Orthodox,” “pious” (eujsebh")—never “Byzantine,” unless they were distinguishing residents of the capitalfrom other “Romans.”

7 J. Darrouzes, “Les documents byzantins du XIIe siecle sur la primaute romaine,” REB 23 (1965): 43.


possibilities for a relationship between Rome and Constantinople which was, if not ex-actly peaceful, certainly different in kind from the relationship of the later Middle Ages.

Most importantly, differences with the Western church were not the crucial canonicalor theological issues during Photios’ patriarchate. The burning issue was still iconoclasm.From our perspective, a kind of foreshortening makes it obvious that iconoclasm wasdead and not to be resurrected. But Photios and his contemporaries knew how the first“restoration of Orthodoxy” had been followed by a revival of iconoclasm. Most hadpersonal memories of that revival. All were still being dragged into arguments abouthow to punish iconoclasts—some advocating severe sanctions, while others called foroikonomia and forgiveness.8 The quarrels over this issue affect every other quarrel of theperiod, including the “Photian Schism” with Rome. Beyond iconoclasm, Photios him-self joined many other men in writing about other “heretics”: Paulicians, Armenians,Muslims, Bogomils, Monophysites, and others.9 So the quarrel with Rome is only oneissue among many in ninth-century Byzantium.

Moreover, the Photian Schism did not arise from differences over dogma. Nobodyclaimed that the pope was not qualified to render a judgment because he was a heretic.Instead, the issue was the canonical authority of the pope within the Eastern church—a question that neither began nor ended with Photios. His predecessor, Ignatios, hadhad similar problems during his first patriarchate (847–858).10 In the controversy overthe legitimacy of Ignatios’ deposition (or resignation) and Photios’ elevation to the patri-archate, both sides appealed to the pope. Photios’ refusal to accept the pope’s judgmentwas based not on some challenge to the pope’s legal authority, but rather on the pope’sfailure to hear any representative of Photios’ side of the case before he made his deci-sion.11 This recognition of Rome’s jurisdiction, with its assumption of Rome’s ortho-doxy, is more like the church of the iconoclast period or even of John Chrysostom’stime, than like the church of Michael VIII Palaiologos. In the later period, Rome’s juris-diction will be challenged on the grounds that the popes, who used to have the authorityof a first among equals, lost that authority when they fell into heresy.12

Nevertheless, Photios and some of his contemporaries did object to the Filioque (andother Latin “errors”). Those who maintain that the Filioque has always been the mostimportant issue for thoughtful, moderate men begin with Photios, for he did explicitlystate that the Filioque was a heresy and the weightiest issue outstanding between Con-stantinople and someWesterners: “Moreover, they have not only been discovered trans-gressing the law in all the above, but they have progressed to the crown of all evils, ifthere is such a thing. . . . They have also tried, with spurious reasoning, interpolatedargument, and an excess of impudence, to adulterate the divine and holy creed whichhas its impregnable strength from all the synodical and ecumenical decrees (Oh, thesubtle deceptions of the Evil One!), for they have added new words, that the Holy Spirit

8 F. Dvornik, The Photian Schism: History and Legend (Cambridge, 1948; repr. 1970), 6 ff.9 H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich, 1959), 520–30.10 Dvornik, Photian Schism, 19–32.11 Ibid., part 1, chaps. 2–8.12 E.g., see the polemicists cited by F. Dvornik, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy, trans. E. A. Quain (New

York, 1966), 159–62.


proceeds not from the Father alone, but also from the Son.”13 But before we portray thisstatement as the earliest example of Byzantine awareness of Roman heresy, we need tolook carefully at its context. Photios discussed the Filioque in an encyclical letter to theEastern patriarchs (quoted above) and in his Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. These texts werenot attacks on the whole Western church, but refutations of the teaching of Frankishmissionaries in Bulgaria. The latter had taught the Bulgars the addition to the creed andquarreled with Byzantine missionaries about it. In fact, the Filioque was not yet beingchanted in Rome. When Photios wrote his treatises against the double procession of theHoly Spirit, he had good reason to think that the popes did not accept the doctrine.14

Nor did he challenge the pope’s authority on the grounds that he was a heretic. Both ofthese things differentiate his position from later opinions.

Finally, anti-Latin arguments do not develop sequentially from Photios to 1453. Anexamination of the transmission of texts shows that Photios’ writings against the Frankishmissionaries had little impact. Nobody adopts his arguments on these issues, and fewpeople even refer to his opinions, until late in the thirteenth century. At that time, theFilioque is central to Byzantine polemic for other reasons, to be discussed below.15

The Eleventh CenturyAnti-Latin arguments do, however, have a continuous life from 1054 on. In the

middle of the eleventh century, Byzantine polemicists raised many issues, some of whichalready had a history. Photios had complained, for example, about Latin Lenten obser-vances and the Latin rite of confirmation, and Michael Keroularios (patriarch of Con-stantinople, 1043–58) raised these same issues.16 But the most prominent complaint ofthe middle of the eleventh century had not surfaced in Photios’ period. Among the“Roman” errors Keroularios mentioned is the use of unleavened bread (azymes) in theeucharist. Other texts of the period echoed the theme. In terms of number of wordswritten, or number of treatises written, azymes far outstrip the procession of the HolySpirit.17 Some who mentioned the Filioque—Peter III of Antioch (1052–56), for ex-ample—maintained that the addition was more important than unleavened bread, buttheir actions belied these words. Peter wrote far more about azymes than about theFilioque.

To explain this emphasis, one needs to look behind Byzantine relations with theWest-ern church to stresses within the empire. In general, the eleventh century saw a numberof challenges to the definitions of “orthodox” and “Roman.” These were not purelyexternal challenges—enemy attacks on the outer boundaries of Byzantium—but civilwars, causing disagreements among the powerful even at the heart of the empire. In

13 Photius, Epistulae et Amphilochia, ed. B. Laourdas and L. G. Westerink (Leipzig, 1988), 1:43.14 Dvornik, Photian Schism, 122.15 This is one of the themes of Dvornik, Photian Schism; see esp. part 2, chaps. 5–6.16 Details of the complaints about Lenten observance, confirmation, and other issues can be found in T. M.

Kolbaba, “Meletios Homologetes ‘On the Customs of the Italians,’” REB 55 (1997): 137–68.17 J. H. Erickson, “Leavened and Unleavened: Some Theological Implications of the Schism of 1054,”

SVThQ 14.3 (1970): 156–58. The best introductions to the azyme controversy are ibid., 155–76, and M. H.Smith III, And Taking Bread . . . Cerularius and the Azyme Controversy of 1054 (Paris, 1978).


other words, this was one of those periods in Byzantine history, like the sixth centuryand the iconoclast period, in which people fought over who had the right to define“orthodox” and “Roman.”

Ironically, success had caused these fierce fights—the success of Byzantine armies,which had reconquered parts of southern Italy and huge areas of Asia Minor and Meso-potamia in the ninth and tenth centuries. These victories brought peoples into the em-pire who had been beyond its borders for a century or more. Their reintegration “poseda demographic problem, which the eleventh century transcribed and prolonged into areligious problem—that is to say, into a crisis of identity (for such is certainly the ultimatesense of Orthodoxy for the Byzantines).”18 The groups who reentered the empire con-sidered themselves orthodox, catholic, apostolic Christians, but theologians in the greatcapital on the Bosphoros tended to label some of them as heretics. Others, consideredorthodox, were not quite “Roman.” Armenians and Syrians, for example, might beneither “Roman” nor “orthodox” (meaning, to a Constantinopolitan, Chalcedonian intheir theology). Then again, they might be “orthodox” but not Roman. Some Arme-nians had even become both “Roman” and “orthodox,” although this group probablydid not include the recent immigrants. Only time would answer questions about theidentity of these people—“foreign” or “Roman,” “orthodox” or “heretical,” “us” or“them.” Meanwhile, fierce struggles ensued. Most importantly for the evolution of Byz-antine views of Latins, three of these questionable groups in the empire raised the issueof unleavened bread.

The Armenians were the most important of the three. Armenia had been under Mus-lim rule until the ninth century. Then the decline of Abbasid power had allowed a periodof independence. Then, in the second half of the tenth century, as Byzantium expandedeastward, Armenia was annexed to the empire, becoming the theme of Iberia in theearly eleventh century. From 1045 to 1071 (battle of Manzikert), Armenia was ruled bythe Byzantine Empire. Initially, the emperors involved in the annexation and integrationof Armenia and Armenians into the empire were fairly tolerant of religious differences.Because Nikephoros II Phokas (963–969) and John Tzimiskes (969–976) wanted to re-populate eastern regions of Anatolia, they welcomed Armenian noble families who mi-grated into Cappadocia and southeastern Anatolia. These Armenians settled themselvesand their ecclesiastical hierarchy within the empire.19 But this sort of tolerance wouldnot last. After the annexation of Ani in 1045, when the last independent Armenianarea fell to the armies of Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–55), relations betweenArmenian communities and their Greek Chalcedonian neighbors worsened. Very soonafter the conquest, Monomachos began to crack down on Armenian heterodoxy. In1048 Peter I, katholikos of the Armenian church, traveled to Constantinople for discus-sions. Discussions were friendly enough (at least the katholikos managed to stay out ofprison), but in general both the emperor and his patriarch, Michael Keroularios, were

18 G. Dagron, “Minorites ethniques et religieuses dans l’orient byzantin a la fin du Xe et au XIe siecle:L’immigration syrienne,” TM 6 (1976): 177–79.

19 G. Dedeyan, “L’immigration armenienne en Cappadoce au XIe siecle,” Byzantion 45 (1975): 41–116.


determined to wipe out the Armenian species of Monophysitism (as they saw it). Theywould soon begin to act on that determination.20

Thus, in the decade before the more famous events of 1054, a group of anti-Chalcedonian, “azymite” Christians debated with Chalcedonian, leavened-bread Chris-tians. From these debates came some of the first treatises against azymes.21 This battlewith the Armenians had a negative impact on discussions with Latins, for when theGreeks discovered that Latins were using unleavened bread, they “often seem[ed] toopreoccupied with contemporary Armenian and Jewish polemics to evaluate properly theLatin position.”22

The same series of tenth-century conquests that made Armenia part of the empirealso reintegrated Syria and its capital, Antioch, a competitor with Constantinople forecclesiastical and even imperial preeminence.23 As they had encouraged the Armenians,the emperors also encouraged the Syrian Monophysites to repopulate imperial territor-ies, especially northern Syria.24 This influx of foreign heretics was decried by Chalcedo-nian churchmen, and conflict ensued between those who advocated or at least practicedtolerance and coexistence and those who would not tolerate the “heretics.” The historyof competition between Chalcedonians and Monophysites in these territories was an-cient and bloody. As it had with the Armenians, imperial tolerance dissolved after thedeath of Basil II (976–1025). In 1029 the non-Chalcedonian patriarch John VIII BarAbdoun was summoned to Constantinople. After a chance to state his views, he wascondemned, excommunicated, and exiled by the synod. But worries about heterodoxyin the region of Melitene continued for some years.25 In Antioch in the 1050s, therewere some fearful fights, including the burning of Orthodox churches.26

The link between Syrian Monophysites and the azyme controversy is not direct, forthey use leavened bread in the eucharist. Still, their presence in the empire influencedthe eleventh-century azyme controversy in two ways. First, the conflict with these het-erodox Christians added to the general crisis of identity within the empire. Indeed, thedocuments regarding their status open for us one of the few windows onto such a crisis,through which we get not only a clear view of those whose definitions of “orthodox”and “Roman” won in the end, but also a fleeting glimpse of their opponents. Thoseopponents seem to have acted more than they spoke. We can only guess at their motives.

20 J. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford, 1986), 131.21 Knowledge of later events has often led to the conclusion that these treatises originate with the Latin-

Byzantine conflicts of the 1050s. As Mahlon Smith, Jean Darrouzes, and John Erickson have pointed out, how-ever, the earliest anti-azyme treatises were ammunition in the debates with the Armenians. J. Darrouzes, “Troisdocuments de la controverse greco-armenienne,” REB 48 (1990): 89–153; idem, “Notes: Un faux Peri tw'najzumwn de Michel Cerulaire,” REB 25 (1967): 288–90; Smith, And Taking Bread, 128 ff, 173; Erickson, “Leav-ened and Unleavened,” 175.

22 Erickson, “Leavened and Unleavened,” 175.23 Dagron, “Minorites,” 205–7.24 Ibid., passim.25 V. Grumel, Les regestes des actes du patriarcat de Constantinople, rev. ed. J. Darrouzes, vol. 1, fasc. 2–3 (Paris,

1989), nos. 838–40, 846. Dagron, “Minorites,” 200–204.26 The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, trans. A. E. Dostourian, Armenia and the Crusades, Tenth to Twelfth Centu-

ries (Lanham, Md., 1993), 2.2, 84–86; Dagron, “Minorites,” 208; Smith, And Taking Bread, 111.


Some emperors, for example, apparently conceived of the empire as an ecumenical body,capable of integrating heterodox Christians in the short run and of converting them toChalcedonian orthodoxy later. On this side of the debate, too, were the bishops andimperial officials around Melitene whom the patriarchal synod reprimanded for exces-sive tolerance of the “Jacobites,” as they called the Syrians. Among other things, theseofficials were accused of tolerating marriages between orthodox people and heretics andof accepting the testimony of heretics in court.27 One would like to know more aboutthis largely unrecorded segment of the population for whom, it seems, the lines between“orthodox” and “heretic” were less clear or less important than they were for the mem-bers of the synod. On the other side of the debate were those whose voices have cometo us in a multitude of texts. These men thought that the heretics would never convert.It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially since, as time passed, they tended to giveheresy “a definition more geographic and ethnic than dogmatic.”28 For these men, thedefinition of orthodox Romans included not only a Chalcedonian dyophysite creed, butalso a set of rituals and customs that were, in fact, the rituals and customs of only part ofthe empire. Latins, Armenians, Syrians, and many others who might consider themselvesboth orthodox and Roman were excluded.29

The second link between Syrian Monophysites and the azyme controversy was in theminds of these same orthodox adherents of the Council of Chalcedon, for they did notalways distinguish Armenians from “Jacobites.” They were encouraged in this conflationby the actions of the groups themselves, who sometimes forgot their differences in theircommon hatred of the imperial-orthodox establishment and its attempts to enforce con-formity.30 So, for example, Syrians and Armenians did occasionally collaborate in violentopposition to imperial attempts to shut down their churches. Thus, although a directlink between Jacobites, who use leavened bread, and polemic against users of unleavenedbread is questionable, it is significant that the first eleventh-century figure to write atreatise against azymes was Patriarch Peter III of Antioch, a city where clashes betweennon-Chalcedonians and Chalcedonians had recently resulted in the burning of severalChalcedonian churches.

Meanwhile, Jews, the group with the longest history of challenging Christian identityand self-definition, had not disappeared either. The number of Jews within the empirewas increased by the return of areas of southern Italy to imperial control in the ninthcentury. Bari andOria, for example, had substantial Jewish communities.31 After sporadicpersecutions in the same century, renewed imperial tolerance for Jews encouraged manyto migrate into the cities of the empire, especially into Constantinople, from furthereast.32 The status of these Jews in the empire remained ambiguous. On the one hand,

27 Grumel, Regestes, no. 846.28 Dagron, “Minorites,” 213.29 Dagron, “Minorites,” 204: “The synod is alarmed, and we sense that there is a complete divorce between

the orthodox, centralizing ideas of Constantinople and the political, social, and economic life of a region that isperhaps also ‘Byzantine’ but in a way different from the capital.”

30 Smith, And Taking Bread, 110–11.31 A. Sharf, Byzantine Jewry from Justinian to the Fourth Crusade (London, 1971), 2.32 Ibid., 107–16.


imperial laws from the period continued the Byzantine tradition by which Jews weresecond-class citizens. For example, the laws spelled out the penalties a Jew should sufferif he should manage—by influence or bribery, for he could not do it legally—to attaina civil or military office in the government. On the other hand, such laws indicate thatsome Jews had sufficient influence and wealth to circumvent the laws and that someChristians were willing to help them do so.33 In the years leading up to the quarrelbetween Cardinal Humbert and Keroularios in 1054, Jews had also come to the attentionof imperial authorities in more negative ways. In 1042 they had participated, with Arme-nians and other “foreigners,” in the riots that accompanied an attempt to depose theempresses, Zoe and Theodora.34 In 1051 the Jews of Bari revolted, and the Christiancitizens of the town retaliated by burning down the Jewish quarter.35

All of this is relevant to the azyme issue because Byzantines associated unleavenedbread with the Jewish commemoration of Passover. Here Byzantines made all sorts ofconnections that modern historians find unconvincing, but our skepticism does notmean that the Byzantines themselves were not honestly convinced. Byzantine polemi-cists argued that using unleavened bread was in itself a “Judaizing” practice, indicating alack of recognition that the New Testament had, in all ways, superseded the Old. Fromthis perspective, Christians who used unleavened bread in the eucharist revealed thatthey were too attached to the Old Testament world of shadows and types, and not con-vinced of the grace of the new dispensation.36 Byzantine conviction on this point wasreinforced by their belief that Armenians “Judaized” in other ways as well. They main-tained a hereditary priesthood and they offered sacrificed meat within the sanctuaryof the church—both practices that the Council in Trullo had condemned as “Jewishcustoms.”37 Although these arguments are not accepted by modern historians and werenot accepted by Jews, Armenians, and Latins at the time, they were nonetheless stronglyfelt by some Byzantines.

So we see that the early eleventh century had been a period of debate about orthodoxidentity, especially about who was to be excluded from the category of “orthodoxy.” Inthat debate, unleavened bread had been used as a marker—the symbol that distinguishednonorthodox “them” from orthodox “us.” When some of the same men who had ex-cluded Armenians for this reason became aware that Latins, too, used unleavened bread,they concluded that Latins, too, were heretics. But other orthodox churchmen did notagree. Thus Leo of Ohrid’s letter against azymes, which is usually seen as the first volleyin the war between Michael Keroularios and Humbert of Silva Candida, was addressednot to the pope or his cardinal, but rather to one of Leo’s acquaintances, John, bishop ofTrani. Trani is in southern Italy and was at that time under Byzantine authority. John

33 Ibid., 112–13.34 Ibid., 116–17.35 Ibid., 123.36 Erickson, “Leavened and Unleavened,” 165–69.37 Trullo 33 and Trullo 99—P.-P. Joannou, Fonti. Fascicolo IX: Discipline generale antique (IIe–IXe s.), vol. 1.1,

Les canons des conciles oecumeniques (Rome, 1962), 166–67, 235–36 [� G. A. Rhalles and M. Potles, Suntagmatw'n qeiwn kai iJerw'n kanonwn (Athens, 1852–59), 2:379, 2:543]. See also G. Dagron, “Judaıser,” TM 11(1991): 365.


was “a Byzantine sympathizer” and “an honorary member of the hierarchy of the GreatChurch in Constantinople.” Leo wrote to John because he had heard that this otherwiseorthodox bishop was accepting azymites in his church.38

In sum, the quarrel about azymes and Latins became fierce because it was internal—not a simple matter of “us” versus “them,” but a debate about the very definition of “us.”

The Twelfth CenturyIn the early years of the Komnenoi, the main concern remained azymes, even for

those whose lives were disrupted by the Crusades.39 Patriarch John IV of Antioch (1089–98) saw the First Crusade capture his city. Initially he stayed in Antioch, where he pre-sided over both Greek and Latin clergy, but he later quarreled with the Latin rulers, fledto Constantinople, and abdicated. Around 1112 he wrote a tract on azymes in which heexplicitly stated that he saw azymes as the most important error of the Latins: “Theprincipal cause of the division between them and us is in the matter of azymes. . . . Thematter of azymes involves in summary form the whole question of true piety; if it isnot cured, the disease of the church cannot be cured.”40 John represents Byzantinechurchmen who were convinced that the use of azymes was itself heretical. Other Or-thodox theologians disagreed. Around 1090, Theophylact, archbishop of Ohrid (1088/89–post 1126), reproached those who raised trivial issues, including azymes, against theLatins: “It seems to me,” he wrote, “that a man versed in church tradition and aware thatno custom is important enough to divide the churches, except for that which leads tothe destruction of dogma, will not” agree that the Westerners “commit unpardonablesins” in matters such as azymes.41 This issue, then, was still debated because it was stillnot settled.

Taking second place after azymes in the twelfth century was the issue of papal pri-macy.42 For example, in one of his texts written for debates with papal envoys in thecapital in 1112, Niketas Seides (fl. first half of the 12th century) named twelve Latinerrors, but insisted that only three were truly important: the procession of the HolySpirit, azymes, and not calling Mary Theotokos. The importance of primacy is demon-strated by his first treatise, for although he began by saying that his concern was the threedoctrinal issues, he ended up writing a refutation of the claims of the papal legates thatRome is the Mother of the churches.43 From that refutation, he moved to doctrinalmatters by arguing that even if Rome were the Mother of the churches, mothers deserveto be followed only if they are faithful to God. His example of how Rome had not beenfaithful, and the subject of his second discourse, was azymes. The emphasis on papal

38 Smith, And Taking Bread, 91, 91 n. 47, 114–18.39 Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur, 610.40 B. Leib, Deux inedits byzantins sur les azymes au debut du XIIe siecle (Rome, 1924), 245 [113], cited and trans.

in Pelikan, Spirit of Eastern Christendom, 177.41 Theophylact of Bulgaria, Proslalia tini tw'n aujtou' oJmilitw'n peri w» n ejgkalou'ntai Lati'noi, ed.

P. Gautier, Theophylacte d’Achrida: Discours, traites, poesies. Introduction, texte, traduction et notes (Thessaloniki,1980), 279.

42 Darrouzes, “Documents,” passim.43 Ibid., 55.


primacy in Seides’ work, and in that of his contemporary, Theodore Smyrnaios (fl.1080–1112), had two roots. First, it was a direct response to papal pretensions. In aletter to Emperor Alexios I, Pope Pascal II (1099–1118) had indicated that acceptanceof Rome’s primacy, in matters of doctrine as in all else, was a prerequisite for ecclesiasticalpeace.44 Seides, Smyrnaios, and others had been assigned by the emperor to refute suchclaims. So, too, Patriarch John X Kamateros’ (1198–1206) later refutation of papal pri-macy was a direct response to Innocent III’s (1198–1216) assertion of that primacy.45

The second reason for Byzantine interest in papal primacy in the twelfth centuryrelates directly to the Crusades. When Latin Crusaders conquered Antioch (1098) andJerusalem (1099), they installed Latin patriarchs in both places. Those patriarchs owed atleast nominal allegiance to the pope; at most, as was often the case, they were actuallyappointed by the pope. Constantinopolitans had not exactly been enthusiastic about theindependence of the other Eastern patriarchs before the Crusades, and the patriarchs ofConstantinople had been known to interfere in the other patriarchates. Nevertheless,they were quick to denounce Rome’s attempts to control them.

Still, Joseph Gill’s assessment of Byzantine denials of papal primacy before 1204 ringstrue: they lack heat. John Kamateros’ debate with Innocent III is “largely academic” intone, with “little sense of urgency.”46 Lists of Latin errors, the lowest and most rabidkind of polemic, do not raise the issue of papal authority until after 1204.47 The questionis crucial in high-level negotiations with Rome, but it is not contested within the Byzan-tine church. Debates about papal primacy have Greek-speaking, Orthodox people onone side, Latins on the other. Even if the Latins score points in a debate, papal primacyis not going to be applied to the East. There is no identity crisis here. “They” believe inpapal primacy; “we” do not. As with other issues, it is only when papal primacy becomesan issue within Greek circles that it generates some heat, and that happens only after1204.

Finally, the Filioque reemerges in the Komnenian period. It scarcely seemed impor-tant in the furor about azymes around 1054, but by the late eleventh century Theophy-lact of Ohrid and others returned to Photios’ claim that this was the truly horrible error.A century later, Innocent III called for the return of the Greek “daughter” church toher “mother,” the Roman church. Patriarch John Kamateros responded that it was theRoman church, in fact, that left, by teaching a heresy and adding to the creed.48

In sum, Byzantines in the Komnenian period worried about many of the same issuesas in the time of Keroularios, especially azymes. They were also increasingly troubledby papal claims to plenitudo potestatis and all that that meant. Among other things, the

44 Letter 437, PL 163:588–89. Darrouzes, “Documents,” 51–54, 57.45 A. Papadakis and A.-M. Talbot, “John X Camaterus Confronts Innocent III: An Unpublished Correspon-

dence,” BSl 33 (1972): 26–41. Also published in part in PL 214:325–29, 756–72, and in J. Spiteris, La critica bi-zantina del Primato Romano nel secolo XII (Rome, 1979), 324–31. Discussion of these letters, with further bibliog-raphy: T. M. Kolbaba, “Barlaam the Calabrian: Three Treatises on Papal Primacy,” REB 53 (1995): 43–44.

46 Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 12.47 The first reference to papal primacy in such texts is in Constantine Stilbes’ list, compiled after 1204: Dar-

rouzes, “Memoire,” para. 4, 44.48 Papadakis and Talbot, “John X Camaterus,” 34–35.


Byzantines were beginning to realize that they could not openly discuss differences withthe Latins if the Latins were not willing to give up the idea that the pope could do thingsalone, without the approval of the other patriarchs.

1204–1261The next major development in Greco-Latin relations was traumatic and unlikely to

endear Latins to theologians or any other Byzantines. The Fourth Crusade ended in theLatin army’s sack of Constantinople on 12 April 1204. Pope Innocent III hoped that theestablishment of a Latin emperor in Constantinople might lead to reunion of thechurches. On the contrary, it stiffened resistance to Latins within the Greek-speakingchurches of Nicaea and Epiros. The Latin conquest did, however, change the prioritiesof Byzantines who criticized Latin doctrines and practices. Although azymes remainedimportant and the Filioque was growing in importance,49 the dominant issue was nowpapal primacy.50

Texts from this period emphasize the role of the pope in the church and do so in waysthat are not at all “academic.” For example, in discussions held between Greeks andLatins in the capital after the appointment of Thomas Morosini as Latin patriarch in1204, the issue of papal primacy was central. In December 1204, the papal legate PeterCapuano held discussions with Greek clergy. He asked them to submit to the pope, butmost of them refused. In 1206 most of the Greek clergy in the capital were still refusingto accept Morosini as their patriarch. In August, September, and October of that year,Patriarch Morosini and the papal legate Benedict, Cardinal of St. Susanna, debated withGreek clergy. The discussion laid out the arguments for and against papal primacy inwhat had, by then, become a formula. The Greeks remained adamant. They wantedtheir own, Greek patriarch.51

These events from early in the period of Latin rule reveal the first reason for thecentrality of papal primacy in this period: in the areas they controlled after 1204, theLatins insisted that Greek clergy and bishops take an oath of obedience to the pope orbe deposed from their churches. Moreover, they were quite open about the implicationsof that oath, for they refused to separate theological issues from papal primacy. If thepope was indeed the head of the church, if Rome was the mother of all the otherchurches—if, in short, all the Western claims for papal primacy in law and doctrine weretrue—then the only solution to the schism was for the daughter church to return to themother, the schismatics to return to the catholic church. All other issues were subsumed

49 For example, in discussions between Greek theologians and papal legates in 1234, the Greek representa-tives insisted that the Filioque was the most important issue, while the Latins condemned the Greek refusal toaccept unleavened bread in the eucharist. Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 65–72.

50 See, e.g., the letter of Patriarch Germanos II to the clergy on Cyprus (1229), PG 140:613–21; summary inGill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 60. It might be possible to count up the number of references to any given topicin all the extant texts of the era, but it would not be particularly useful. Most texts that survive do so becauselater eras are interested in their content. Based on my reading of surviving theological texts and on the ac-counts of historians, I have reached the conclusion that papal primacy is the central issue in most debates; thatjudgment, while defensible, remains subjective.

51 Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 32–34. For typical Greek arguments against papal primacy, the best summar-ies are Darrouzes, “Documents,” 42–88, and Spiteris, La critica bizantina.


under the issue of papal primacy.52 So the Latins gave the Greeks good reasons to thinkthat this issue must be settled before any others could be. The Greeks learned the lessonwell. When, in 1253, John III Vatatzes (1221–54) sent an embassy to the pope, seekingreunion of the churches, his proposals began with an acknowledgment of papal primacy,including the right of appeal to Rome in all church matters.53

But some Greek clergy and people were less adamant than the debaters of 1204 or1206. Around 1205 the bishops of Rodosto and Negroponte submitted to papal author-ity.54 Papal letters from the pontificates of Innocent III and Honorius III (1216–27) reveala number of monasteries that submitted to the pope and received, in return, papal pro-tection for their rights and properties.55 In 1214 Patriarch Theodore Irenikos of Nicaea(1214–16) wrote to the people of Constantinople, exhorting them to remain true totheir faith and not to vow obedience to the pope: “For how would your faith be pre-served and safe-guarded, if you should agree to be one of the pope’s faithful?”56 Oftencited as an example of Greek resistance, this letter is equally an indication that some ofthe people were wavering, possibly because of the “conciliatory policy towards theGreeks” that the second Latin emperor of Constantinople followed.57 Later, the case ofthe clergy of Cyprus reveals a similar ambivalence within the Orthodox communityoutside the City. Cyprus had been under Latin rule since 1191, and the Greek clergythere could not agree among themselves about the best way to coexist with the Latins.To what extent should they compromise? Could they take an oath of obedience to thepope and/or to the Latin bishop without compromising their orthodoxy? They quar-reled about this issue for years, arguing about the limits of oikonomia. Asked for guidance,Patriarch Germanos II (1223–40) and his synod in Nicaea also failed to agree. They firstruled that the clergy of Cyprus could compromise with the Latin archbishop in variousways without betraying their faith, but later, under pressure from a more radical elementfrom Constantinople, they modified this decision. Thus they added confusion to thesituation instead of alleviating it.58

In light of this evidence, it is fair to say that past scholarship has often overemphasizedthe Greek clergy and bishops who fled to Nicaea and Epiros rather than take an oath ofobedience to the pope. Most Greeks did resist the Latins, but some did so passively, whileothers compromised. The important point is that the compromisers existed; they musthave had reasons for their actions. When their opponents admit that they exist, they

52 Examples of this Latin emphasis on Roman primacy can be found in nearly every piece of papal correspon-dence from the period. For examples, see Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 65, 67, 89, 93.

53 Ibid., 92–95.54 J. Richard, “The Establishment of the Latin Church in the Empire of Constantinople (1204–1227),” in

Latins and Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204, ed. B. Arbel, B. Hamilton, and D. Jacoby (London,1989), 47–48.

55 Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 52–53; Richard, “Establishment of the Latin Church,” 54.56 Cited in Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 40.57 Henry of Hainault reigned from 1206 to 1216 in Constantinople. See G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzan-

tine State, trans. J. Hussey (New Brunswick, N.J., 1957), 381.58 J. Gill, “The Tribulations of the Greek Church in Cyprus, 1196–c. 1280,” ByzF 5 (1977): 78–80; Hussey,

Orthodox Church, 201–6; M. Angold, “Greeks and Latins after 1204: The Perspective of Exile,” in Latins andGreeks in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204 (as in note 54), 72–75.


claim that they were merely weak or evil, willing to sell their souls for safety or politicalpreference. Maybe some were craven traitors, but we need not take their opponents’word for it. It is equally likely that some men honestly believed that an oath of obedienceto the pope was no stain on their orthodoxy. That belief, however, made their definitionof orthodoxy quite different from that of the anti-Latin, anti-papal rigorists. Their com-promise goes a long way toward explaining the heat with which other men attackedpapal pretensions. Those who opposed Western ideas and Western authority—whetherwe call them intransigent or steadfast—were so fierce in their opposition because theirdefinition of the boundaries of orthodoxy was not universally accepted. They were try-ing either to convince the compromisers that they were wrong or, failing that, to con-vince the rest of their contemporaries that the compromisers should be anathematized.

The Palaiologan PeriodIn 1261, in a serendipitous accident that many considered miraculous, a small army

from Nicaea recaptured the city of Constantinople. No longer in exile, Michael VIII(1259–82) and the other leaders from Nicaea proceeded to reestablish the Roman Em-pire of Constantinople. But the question of reunion of the churches of Rome and Con-stantinople would not evaporate along with the Latin Empire. In fact, for Michael VIII,the question was perhaps more urgent than for any of his predecessors because variousWestern enemies proposed a “crusade” against the “schismatic Greeks” to recover theempire for catholic Christendom. To fend off these attackers, Michael opened and main-tained negotiations with the papacy for reunion of the churches. For these negotiations,even more than for those during the Empire of Nicaea, papal primacy was the dominanttheme, and for many of the same reasons. The popes still insisted that this was the funda-mental issue,59 and Byzantines still disagreed among themselves about compromise. Inthe collection of documents related to the Second Council of Lyons (1274) publishedby Vitalien Laurent and Jean Darrouzes, the dominant issues remain papal primacy, theright of appeal to the papacy, and the commemoration of the pope in the Byzantineliturgy.60

But the Filioque continued to grow in importance. It became the central issue some-time around the Second Council of Lyons. Many will challenge the idea that it wasaround 1274—and only then—that the Filioque became the crucial issue. After all, it wasthe most important issue for Photios, for Theophylact of Ohrid, for Greek theologians atNicaea in 1234, and for theologians of the Palaiologan period. It remains the most im-portant issue for many theologians today. It is quite natural to conclude that it has alwaysbeen the most important issue, at least for thoughtful Christians. But it has not. Thedisputants of the 1050s hardly mentioned it. Treatises on the topic, including the state-ment composed by the Nicene synod in 1234,61 appear in the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies, but they are far less common than discussions of azymes and papal prim-

59 See Kolbaba, “Barlaam the Calabrian,” 43–48, esp. the letter of Clement IV quoted there.60 V. Laurent and J. Darrouzes, Dossier grec de l’Union de Lyon (1273–1277), Archives de l’Orient chretien 15

(Paris, 1976).61 Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 72.


acy.62 This does not mean that the Filioque was not important to many people and atsome times before 1274. Certain men of a philosophical bent seem always to have beentroubled by the implications of double procession, while men who were concerned withauthority within the church often challenged the unilateral character of the addition tothe creed. But the Filioque was not the subject of more treatises, more debates, or moreinvective than papal primacy or azymes before 1274.

So we should be more surprised than we are when we see how the issue dominatedthe Palaiologan period. This dominance can be seen in a number of ways. For example,a rough count of the authored works listed in the Greek Index Project reveals that about70 percent of all the polemical works written in the Palaiologan period were against theLatins. Of those, about half were about the procession of the Holy Spirit.63 For anotherexample, Barlaam the Calabrian wrote twenty-one anti-Latin treatises. Fifteen of theseare concerned in some way with the relations of the persons in the Trinity; ten explicitlymention the procession of the Holy Spirit in their titles.64 This dominance needs ex-plaining. We cannot simply claim that the Filioque is the most important issue in anabsolute, philosophical sense; such a claim cannot be proven or verified. More to thepoint, even if it is the most important issue, it was not always seen and treated as suchin Byzantium.

As was true of azymes and papal primacy, the Filioque became a burning issue onlywhen it became an issue within the Eastern church. There were no Byzantine defendersof the Filioque before the 1270s. It was not necessary to write treatises to convince otherByzantines that the addition to the creed was illegitimate and possibly heretical. WithinByzantium—and therefore within most theological discussions in Byzantium—the be-lief that the Spirit proceeded from the Father alone could be assumed; it did not have tobe defended.

Moreover, in general, when the question did come up in arguments with the Latins,its theology was seldom discussed systematically. The error of the Latins in this mattercame primarily from their unilateral addition to the creed, as Theophylact of Ohridexpressed so clearly: “But the Symbol of the faithful must be the Symbol freed from allalteration . . . for not even the axe-wielders of Ezekiel spared those marked with the signif they did not observe that their sign was not counterfeit.”65 Perhaps the Latins hadsimply not thought through or were not capable of thinking through the theologicalimplications of this novelty. Theophylact surmised that the Latin language had no wayof distinguishing the “procession” of the Holy Spirit from the Father from his “havingbeen sent” by the Son. He assumed that if he simply showed the Latins their misunder-

62 I base this statement on a close study of the polemical works catalogued in H.-G. Beck’s Kirche und theo-logische Literatur, as well as on more recent studies of the theological debates of the period.

63 R. E. Sinkewicz and W. M. Hayes, Manuscript Listings for the Authored Works of the Palaeologan Period (To-ronto, 1989). The other half is divided among the following, in roughly descending order: treatises entitled gen-erally “Contra Latinos” or “De unione” or something similar; treatises against purgatory, against azymes,against papal primacy; and miscellaneous single occurrences, such as a treatise “Against Thomas [Aquinas].”

64 For a list of Barlaam’s works, see R. E. Sinkewicz, “The Solutions Addressed to George Lapithes by Bar-laam the Calabrian and Their Philosophical Context,” MedSt 43 (1981): 185–94.

65 Theophylact, Peri w» n ejgkalou'ntai Lati'noi, 251.


standing and explained how dangerous the theological implications of this addition were,they would concede the point.66 During the discussions held at Nicaea and Nymphaeumin the period of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, that condescension was less evi-dent. Latins came to discussions armed with both a knowledge of Greek and manuscriptsof the writings of the Greek fathers of the church. Still, the Greek theologians involvedin those debates stressed the Filioque precisely because it was the area where they feltthe firmest ground beneath their feet. They were utterly convinced of the rightness oftheir position, and nothing the Latins said changed any of their minds.

But the firm ground began to shake in the period around the Council of Lyons. Inlate 1273 or early 1274, John Bekkos (born ca. 1230, patriarch of Constantinople 1275–82), an important Constantinopolitan churchman, became convinced that the Latin po-sition on the Filioque was theologically defensible. From his time on, there was a debatewithin Byzantium about the Latin position. The unionist defenders of the Filioque ad-duced quite sophisticated arguments, based not only on logic but also on the writings ofGreek and Latin church fathers. The anti-unionist, anti-Filioque people were caughtoff-guard by this, at first, and did not always do a good job of defending their position.Although some partisan historians still dismiss him with a few scathing words, Bekkoswas not obviously and self-evidently wrong. He may not have been the most subtletheologian in history, but he convinced many other men of his position. He also becamepatriarch after the Council of Lyons and the union manufactured there. Later, when thatunion was repudiated, the first synod convened to condemn Bekkos and the otherunionists was more a lynch-mob than a thoughtful discussion. The second synod, con-vened years later, was unable to convert Bekkos and his supporters to the anti-Filioqueopinion.67 Patriarch Gregory II of Cyprus (1283–89) produced strong, reasoned refuta-tions,68 but Bekkos had his supporters, both at the time and down to the end of theempire.

Changing Tone

John Bekkos did not convert to Roman Catholicism; he merely believed that thetheologians who argued in favor of the double procession of the Holy Spirit were correctand in agreement with the fathers of the church. In the centuries after his death, severalprominent Byzantine intellectuals would reach a broader conclusion: that Latin theolo-gians and philosophers were right about many things. Some of these intellectuals wouldconvert; the most famous example is Cardinal Bessarion (ca. 1399–1472).69 DemetriosKydones, a fourteenth-century convert to Catholicism, put it best when describing how,

66 Ibid., 253–55.67 Hussey, Orthodox Church, 247.68 Hussey, Orthodox Church, 247–49; A. Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium: The ‘Filioque’ Controversy in the Patri-

archate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283–1289) (New York, 1984).69 The most thorough study of his life and work is L. Mohler, Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist und

Staatsmann, 3 vols. (Paderborn, 1923–42). A more accessible and up-to-date survey is J. Gill, Personalities of theCouncil of Florence (New York, 1964), 45–54.


in his youth, he began to study Thomas Aquinas and other Latin theologians: “Now itwould become apparent that the Latins too had people capable of the highest intellectualattainments—something that had not been widely known in the past among the Byzan-tines. . . . For too long, my Byzantine countrymen had been content to hold on to thestaid old notion that mankind was divided into two groups: Greeks and Barbarians. . . .The Latins could not be credited as being capable of anything worthy of human be-ings.”70 This awareness of Latin theological sophistication brings us to the second majorpoint of this paper: between Photios and Bekkos there had been a fundamental shift inhow Byzantine intellectuals perceived their Western European brethren, a shift reflectedin the changing tone of anti-Latin texts.

The Ninth CenturyPhotios and others after him manifested the classic middle Byzantine attitude toward

Western “barbarians.” Photios claimed that Pope Leo (III?) had made Christians inRome say the creed in Greek because Latin was such an inferior language that it “oftenrender[s] false notions of the doctrines of the faith.”71 Photios was willing to blame mostWestern errors on ignorance and lack of education. Even when he descended to name-calling and aspersions, his epithets did not resemble later polemic. Rather, he used theclassic terminology of heresy and heretics: arrogance, rashness, insolence, impudence,pride. In The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, for example, he described the advocates of theFilioque in ways that echo talk about heretics throughout history. For example, he wroteof “the arrogance of those contentious men who hold fast to unrighteousness and striveagainst the truth.”72 He referred to their “rash impudence,” “brutal and insolent attacks,”and “lawlessness.”73 “When all is said and done,” he wrote, “it comes down to the sameunending pride.”74 We would err if we put too much weight on these descriptions asindications of what Photios thought of “Latins.” If we compare these epithets to Photios’synopsis of the ecumenical synods in his letter to the Khan of Bulgaria, we see strikingparallels. Arios was also proud; he had “an overweening attitude” and refused to “seesomething that is true of everything and self-evident.”75 Makedonios, too, ignored theobvious and was “arrogant” and “insolent.”76 This is an old story: heretics are proud anddevil-inspired, refusing to see what any honest, humble, praying man would see. Theyare mad, arrogant, insolent, blasphemous, and willfully blind. When Photios described

70 Demetrios Kydones, Apologia 1, ed. G. Mercati, in Notizie di Procoro e Demetrio Cidone, Manuele Caleca eTeodoro Meliteniota ed altri appunti per la storia della teologia e della letteratura bizantina del secolo XIV, ST 56 (VaticanCity, 1931), 364; trans. J. Likoudis, Ending the Byzantine Greek Schism (New Rochelle, N.Y., 1983), 26. See alsoF. Kianka, “The Apology of Demetrius Cydones: A Fourteenth-Century Autobiographical Source,” ByzSt 7.1(1980), 57–71; eadem, “Demetrius Cydones and Thomas Aquinas,” Byzantion 52 (1982): 264–86.

71 Photius, Logo" peri th'" tou' JAgiou Pneumato" mustagwgia", PG 102:376, trans. J. P. Farrell, Saint Pho-tios: The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit (Brookline, Mass., 1987), 103.

72 PG 120:280; trans. Farrell, 59.73 E.g., see PG 120:297–301; trans. Farrell, 66–68.74 PG 120:324; trans. Farrell, 80.75 Photius, Epistulae et Amphilochia, 1:5; trans. D. S. White and J. R. Berrigan Jr., The Patriarch and the Prince

(Brookline, Mass., 1982), 42.76 Photius, Epistulae et Amphilochia, 1:6; trans. White and Berrigan, 43–44.


Frankish missionaries in Bulgaria in such terms, he was not commenting on the ethnicor racial characteristics of Westerners; he was describing heretics.

The Eleventh CenturyThe tone of the arguments in 1054 was a bit worse than at the time of Photios. Yet it

was nowhere near as acrimonious as generally assumed. That general assumption restson a reading of only what Humbert of Silva Candida and Michael Keroularios wrote.In the balance against these writings we need to put not only the oft-noted irenic posi-tion of Peter of Antioch, but also a multitude of other texts from the period. In thesetexts, Byzantine writers still condescended to theirWestern brothers. Both Peter of Anti-och and Leo of Ohrid assumed that the Latins had wandered from the true path out ofignorance, and that if they were corrected by their more learned, wiser Eastern brethren,they would return to the straight and narrow.77 Latins were barbarians, ignorant of doc-trine. The superior orthodox Christians must be patient with them.

Byzantine disputants also limited their instruction to a part of the Western church;they did not maintain that the whole Western church had fallen into error. Keroularios,for example, although he was inconsistent on this point, usually insisted that the popewas not to blame for the errors of the West or for his dispute with Humbert. He distin-guished between the pope, with whom he wanted an alliance, and the “Franks,” includ-ing his archenemy and the Byzantine governor in southern Italy, the Lombard Argyros.Keroularios’ synod in 1054 did not condemn the pope or Westerners in general, butclaimed that Humbert and the other legates were impostors bearing forged letters alteredby Argyros.78 Peter of Antioch defended Westerners on the basis of his knowledge ofthem, and insisted that if some Westerners were violating canon law (by eating strangledthings or marrying within forbidden degrees), they must be doing so without the knowl-edge of the pope.79

Behind this last comment, and fundamental to our understanding of the events of1054, was an awareness that the West was not a monolith. Peter of Antioch, Leo ofOhrid, and Michael Keroularios did not live in a world where the division of East fromWest was clear and all-important. Instead of that bipolar world—Rome facing Constan-tinople—that dominates modern accounts of 1054, we find different groups, withdifferent interests, involved in ecclesiastical negotiations and disputes. In Italy alone theactors included the pope, the German emperor, the Normans in southern Italy, the Lom-bards in southern and central Italy, and the indigenous Italians of the same region, someof whom still considered themselves subjects of the emperor in Constantinople. Some-times a single individual embodied this complex world: Argyros, whom Keroulariosblames for the whole fiasco, was a Lombard of the Latin rite. He had lived in Constanti-nople. In 1054 he was the Byzantine imperial governor in southern Italy. Other examples

77 E.g., Peter of Antioch, Letter to Michael Keroularios, PG 120:805: “For they are our brothers, even if ithappens that, through rusticity and lack of education, they have often fallen from what is proper.”

78 Synodal Judgment, PG 120:741.79 Letter to Keroularios, PG 120:808.


of this multilateral world include the recipients of two of the earliest and most importantanti-azyme texts: Dominic of Grado and John of Trani.

Peter of Antioch wrote to Dominic, bishop of Grado, probably in the spring of1054.80 No one who studies the events of 1054 overlooks this text, for it is one of theearliest.81 One aspect of its context, however, is seldom explicitly noted. As a result, it isgenerally presented as a straightforward example of a letter from an “Eastern” patriarchto a “Western” bishop, as if the distinction were as clear-cut as it would be in the thir-teenth or fourteenth century. But history had made Grado an odd sort of liminal place.For reasons too complicated to discuss here, the metropolitans (or patriarchs, as theycame to call themselves) of Grado sat on a cathedra not on the island of Grado but inVenice. Now, in hindsight, we see clearly that Venice had gained political independencefrom Constantinople in the course of the tenth century. But its cultural independencecould not have been so clear. Dominic of Grado, the recipient of Peter’s letter, built the“new” church of San Marco, the one we see today. He imported architects and skilledcraftsmen from the East to do so, which explains the fundamentally Byzantine characterof San Marco.82 So the geography of Venice, between Byzantium and the West, wasreflected in its culture, as it always has been. Leo of Ohrid’s treatise on azymes illuminatesanother section of this multicultural world. Leo’s addressee, John, bishop of Trani, wasa representative of the Byzantine church in southern Italy, and he was “asked to call thesematters to the pope’s attention only after he [had] ‘corrected himself.’”83

Aware of the ethnic and religious diversity of Western Europe, eleventh-century au-thors of Byzantine religious texts did not yet engage in the kind of name-calling thatwould characterize later anti-Latin polemic. For them (if not for the contemporary histo-rians),84 Westerners were not barbarian “Franks” or “Kelts.” Usually they were called“Romans,” even when they erred. Thus Keroularios told Peter of Antioch about Romanerrors ( JRwmaikw'n sfalmatwn).85 Peter replied, speaking also of “Romans,” whom hedistinguished from “Vandals,” although he feared that the Romans might have been in-fluenced by the Vandals.86 When tribal names of barbarians appear, it tends to be in whatwe would call secular contexts. Keroularios, for example, wrote about his desire to forman alliance with the pope against the “Franks,” by which he meant the men we call“Normans.”87

Put simply, Byzantines were not yet constructing a world in which the “Latins” or“Franks” from theWest were a monolithic, threatening group. Keroularios was the onlyperson to imply that the Western church as a whole was in a state of schism. Although

80 PG 120:755–82.81 Smith, And Taking Bread, 54–59, 134, 157, 173, 178–79.82 DHGE 21 (1986), s.v. “Grado.”83 Leo of Ohrid, Letter to John of Trani, PG 120:835–44. Quote from Smith, And Taking Bread, 114. For

other information regarding Leo’s letter, see Smith, 106–8, 156–57, 173, 174.84 See Alexander Kazhdan’s contribution to this volume.85 PG 120:789.86 PG 120:805.87 Letter to Peter of Antioch, PG 120:784.


he usually maintained that they had nothing against the popes, and that his only quarrelwas with the “false” envoys and their “forged” papers, Keroularios did tell Peter of Anti-och that: “From the sixth holy and ecumenical council to the present, the commemora-tion of the pope has been excised from the sacred diptychs of our holy churches. [Thisis] because the pope of that time, Vigilius, did not want to come to that council, nor toanathematize what Theodoritos wrote against the orthodox faith and against the twelvechapters of St. Cyril, or the letter of Ibas. And from that time to the present the popehas been cut off from our holy and catholic church.”88 But Peter rebuked Keroulariosfor this statement, pointing out that it was wrong both in its central point and in itsknowledge of history:

I was ashamed of these latter things contained in the letter of Your Honor, nor doI know what to say, believe me. . . . For before examination and complete under-standing, from vain rumor you have set forth that which never happened as if it hadhappened. . . . For Vigilius was at the fifth council . . . , but he was not at the sixthcouncil. The interval between these two synods was 139 years. It did happen, for abrief while, that commemoration was cut off on account of [Vigilius] contendingwith the most holy patriarch Menas and subjecting him to demotion. [This schismlasted] until the archbishops made peace and were reconciled with one another. Atthe sixth holy synod, the pope was the priest Agathon, a worthy and divine man,wise in divine things. Read the acts of the sixth council, as it is customary to do onthe Sunday after the Exaltation of the Venerable Cross. For you will find there thatthe aforementioned Agathon was gloriously acclaimed in that holy council.89

Even later writers who copied and expanded Keroularios’ list of Latin errors tended toleave off his erroneous introduction. The idea that the popes were heretics who hadbeen in error for centuries was not commonly accepted in 1054. Keroularios’ claim thatthey were was idiosyncratic.

Two other pieces of evidence are often adduced in support of the idea that somethingradically different and more hostile took place around 1054. First, it is often asserted thatKeroularios closed the Latin churches in Constantinople.90 However, as Mahlon Smithhas noted, this statement is based on slim evidence. Humbert of Silva Candida allegedon several occasions that Keroularios persecuted Latin churches. This persecution seemsmostly to have taken the form of “mocking” the Latins by calling them “azymites.”91

Humbert claimed only once that Keroularios actually closed Latin churches in the capi-tal, and even then he qualified his statement as hearsay. Later, when he was in Constanti-nople, he reformed the practices of certain churches there. These must have beenchurches founded for the Westerners in the city; neither Keroularios nor any other

88 PG 120:788–89.89 PG 120:797–800.90 For example, it is stated in passing as a fact by Hussey, Orthodox Church, 132. Grumel, Regestes, no. 863,

“Ordre de fermer les eglises Latines de la capitale,” assumes that such a document once existed but notes thatno such document is extant.

91 PL 143:759.


Greek in the city would have let him “reform” a Greek church. If Humbert “reformed”Latin churches in Constantinople, those churches must have been open.92

Second, it is often asserted that Keroularios stirred the common people up to join hisconflict with the emperor andWestern envoys, and that he found it easy to do so becausethe people harbored a xenophobic hatred for Westerners.93 A closer look makes thisassertion even more questionable than the first. Evidence for popular anti-Latin senti-ment in this period is meager. Keroularios did indeed raise the rabble on more thanone occasion, but the people’s rage seems to have had other roots: unhappiness withConstantine IX Monomachos, as well as the general malaise of this period of instabilityin Byzantium.94

In sum, the events of 1054 were insignificant for the short run. They received littleattention in the empire at the time. The first known references to a “schism” betweenKeroularios and Humbert date from the early twelfth century.95 As in the time of Pho-tios, much of the conflict was more individual than general—Humbert versus Keroular-ios, rather than Rome versus Constantinople. Many of the features of later relationsbetween Byzantium and Latins were not yet evident. Perception of the West as a unityand a threat; anxiety about Latin theological sophistication; popular antipathy—all ofthese would emerge later.

The Twelfth CenturyDuring the Komnenian period (1081–1204), Latin penetration of the empire grew

exponentially. This has been discussed too often and too well by other scholars to needelaboration here.96 But this was not the impact of an active, vibrant, potent, masculineWestern force on a passive, decadent, impotent, effeminate Eastern despotism. Byzantineemperors and their subjects reacted toWestern pressures and exerted their own pressureson Westerners. To read Paul Magdalino’s account of Manuel I’s empire (1143–80) orRalph-Johannes Lilie’s account of Byzantine relations with the Crusader kingdoms ofSyria and Palestine is to see Byzantine emperors both exerting great influence on West-erners and adopting Western ideas and methods.97 The central dichotomy of Alexios I’s(1081–1118) or his grandson’s world was not as much between “Rhomaioi” and “La-tinoi” as between “those who are for me” and “those who are against me”; not between“Roman” ways of doing things and “Latin” ones, but between “what works” and “whatdoes not.” The borders were permeable, and both sides were changed by extendedcontact.

92 For a fuller statement of this argument, with citations of the primary texts, see Smith, And Taking Bread,119–21.

93 Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, 297; Hussey, Orthodox Church, 134.94 Helene Ahrweiler concurs: “Recherches sur la societe byzantine au XIe siecle: Nouvelles hierarchies et

nouvelles solidarites,” TM 6 (1976): 121.95 A. Michel, Humbert und Kerullarios, Studien, vol. 1 (Paderborn, 1924), 30–33.96 Even to survey the bibliography of this topic would be a monumental task. See the bibliography in P.

Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180 (Cambridge, 1993), or in M. Angold, Church and Soci-ety under the Comneni, 1081–1261 (Cambridge, 1995).

97 Magdalino, Manuel I; R.-J. Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, 1096–1204, trans. J. C. Morris andJ. E. Ridings (Oxford, 1993).


This two-way flow of men and ideas is a recurring theme in recent histories of thepolitics, economy, and warfare of the empire. In contrast, the theological sphere in thisperiod is generally portrayed as impermeable. Adopting the view our Byzantine sourceswould like us to adopt, we tend to see Orthodoxy as a kind of fortress with outer walls ofslippery-smooth marble. Latin theological ideas, recognized as novelties and dangerousheresies, bounced off this marble without so much as leaving a smudge. In the end,however, the same sources inadvertently show us a rather different Byzantium, and wecannot quite believe their explicit message of a faith untouched by Western ideas. Per-haps Byzantine theologians remained truly unaffected by Latin ideas in the time of Pho-tios, for at that time their theological and philosophical training was superior to that ofanyone in the West. By the twelfth century, however, such superiority was melting away.The Latins were catching up, and some Greeks knew they were. Given the acrimoniousad hominem attacks of 1054, it is unlikely that Humbert’s logic impressed them. In con-trast, when Alexios I listened to debates regarding the procession of the Holy Spiritbetween a Latin bishop and some Greek theologians (1112), he was convinced by theLatin arguments and sent his own theologians back to the drawing board. The extantaccount of this debate was written by the Latin bishop, so we should be skeptical. Yet itis true that various Greek theologians worked very hard at refuting Latin argumentsaround 1112. One senses that their confident condescension had been shaken.98

Still more interesting is the controversy, in the time of Manuel I, over the Gospelphrase, “The Father is greater than I.” The trouble began when an imperial ambassador,Demetrios of Lampe, returning from the Latin West, brought with him ideas about therelations of the persons in the Trinity. He reported that he had heard Latins say thatthe Son was at the same time inferior to and equal to the Father, and he proclaimedthat opinion ridiculous. Emperor Manuel differed with Demetrios and deputed HugoEteriano, a Pisan theologian and friend, to argue against him. Probably most of thechurchmen of Constantinople supported Demetrios, in part because they believed thathis opinion was the traditional, native one, while Hugo’s was a Latin innovation.99 How-ever that may be, the emperor dominated the council that decided the matter in 1166,and so Demetrios’ position was anathematized in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy andHugo’s inscribed on enormous marble tablets attached to the walls of the GreatChurch.100 The doctrine that had been criticized by a Greek and defended by a Latinbecame official dogma within the Greek church.101

98 Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur, 616; ODB, s.v. “Grossolano, Peter,” 2:885.99 Magdalino, Manuel I, 287–90.100 On the tablets, see C. Mango, “The Conciliar Edict of 1166,” DOP 17 (1963): 317–30.101 The sources for this controversy have been studied very carefully, and much has been learned from rather

scanty material. Still, it may be worthy of another study; ideas about the import of Latin influence in the Kom-nenian period have changed a great deal since the last careful study of the origins and meaning of this conflict.My analysis of the events is based on a quick reading of the primary sources and on reflections inspired by Mag-dalino’s version of the events in P. Magdalino, “The Phenomenon of Manuel I Komnenos,” in Byzantium andthe West, c. 850–c. 1200, ed. J. D. Howard-Johnston (� ByzF 13; Amsterdam, 1988); repr. in Tradition andTransformation in Medieval Byzantium (Aldershot, 1991), no. , 196–98. The most thorough article on the con-troversy, with publication of texts, is P. Classen, “Das Konzil von Konstantinopel und die Lateiner,” BZ 48(1955): 338–68. See also G. Thetford, “The Christological Councils of 1166 and 1170 in Constantinople,”


Although many details of the case elude historians, its broad outlines reveal threeimportant features of Byzantine relations with Latins in the twelfth century. First, theintellectual boundaries between East andWest were permeable. Demetrios traveled westand picked up a controversy there. Hugo Eteriano, an Italian, lived in Constantinopleand entered the lists as the emperor’s champion. This permeability complicates historicalreconstruction of the boundaries between East and West, Greek and Latin, Orthodoxand Catholic. Even what initially seems like the simplest question has no answer: Whichwas the “Latin” position here? At first glance, it seems clear that Hugo’s was the “Latin”opinion. But the answer is probably more complex than that. According to the historianJohn Kinnamos, Demetrios’ position was imported, for he had “returned from [theWest] full of drivel.”102 We cannot unquestioningly believe Kinnamos, however, whowas ever-supportive of the emperor and ever-contemptuous of Latins; he omitted anymention of Hugo’s role and presented the emperor’s opinion as wholly self-generated.In the end, it seems that both sides of the debate were inspired byWestern concerns, butthat their accounts after the fact were anxious to hide Western influences.103 When weread between the lines, Orthodox Constantinople’s walls look more like a cellular mem-brane than a marble castle.

Second, Byzantines continued to disagree among themselves about the definition oforthodoxy and specifically about whether that definition included Latins. On the onehand, around this time a list of Latin “errors,” which had probably been circulating fora while, surfaces in the historical record. This, the most scurrilous kind of anti-Latinpolemic, reveals the existence of a virulently anti-Latin contingent in Constantinople.104

On the other hand, there is obviously a problem with concentrating too much on theanti-Latin crowd. At least in the controversy surrounding Demetrios of Lampe, theyseem to have lost. Hugo andManuel won; it was their position that became the orthodoxposition. The marble tablets in the Great Church remained there until 1567.105 Besides,that list of Latin errors was written to convince fellow Byzantines, not to convince Latins.In other words, the list reveals the existence of Byzantines who were not convinced thatLatins were filthy heretics, as well as the existence of those who were.

Third, it was necessary for each side to downplay the role of Western influence inthese events. Demetrios and his supporters saw and portrayed themselves as diligent pol-ishers of the smooth marble walls of Orthodoxy, trying to rebuff all things Latin, while

SVThQ 31 (1987): 143–61; A. Dondaine, “Hugues Etherien et la concile de CP de 1166,” HJ 77 (1958):473–83; J. Gouillard, “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie,” TM 2 (1967): 76–80, 216–26; L. Petit, “Documents in-edits sur le concile de 1166 et ses derniers adversaires,” VizVrem 11 (1904): 465–93.

102 John Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, trans. C. M. Brand (New York, 1976), 189, book6.2; Ioannes Kinnamos, Epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum, ed. A. Meineke, CSHB (Bonn,1836), 251.

103 Magdalino, “Phenomenon,” 196–97.104 Hugo Eteriano translated such a list into Latin sometime before 1178. Hergenroether published both

Hugo’s translation and a Greek list that mostly corresponded to it, entitled: Peri tw'n Fraggwn kai tw'nloipw'n Latinwn: J. Hergenroether, Monumenta graeca ad Photium eiusque Historiam Pertinentia (Ratisbon, 1869),62–71. See also A. Argyriou, “Remarques sur quelques listes grecques enumerant les heresies latines,” ByzF 4(1972): 13–15; Darrouzes, “Memoire,” 54–55.

105 Mango, “Conciliar Edict,” 317–21.


Kinnamos did not mention Hugo Eteriano’s role and portrayed Demetrios’ heresy as animported product.

A summary of these mixed messages is difficult. Given that it was desirable for bothsides to hide any “Latin” connection in their teaching, it seems that anti-Latin sentimentwas strong and getting stronger. Yet the presence of Latins in the empire and frequentembassies of Greeks to theWest allowed both friendly and unfriendly interaction, as wellas mutual influences that usually went unrecorded in contemporary sources. This wasstill the empire of the Komnenoi, with their ties of blood and friendship to Latins, andwith subjects who had not yet experienced the traumatic events of 1204.

1204–1261After 1204 the opinion that Latins are Christian brothers was modified, even in the

most pro-Latin circles. Everyone took the separation of the churches for granted. Theperiod was characterized by one attempt after another to reunite the churches. It alsosaw both violent resistance to these efforts and a kind of openness to Western ideas.Paradoxically, the openness was often a result of the division. Some Byzantine scholarsthought they had to learn more about the Latins before they could refute them. In theend, these trends led to a wide spectrum of opinion.

At one end of the spectrum is the most scurrilous kind of polemic against the Latins,which became popular. Lists of Latin “customs” or “errors” circulated widely. Theseincluded not only theological issues such as the Filioque and liturgical issues such asazymes, but also disgust at the things Latins ate and the clothes they wore.106 In this way,opponents of church union sought to undermine the advocates of union by associatingthem with filthy heretics. For example, the anti-unionists could not acknowledge thatJohn Bekkos might have reached a conviction of the orthodoxy of the Filioque by read-ing patristic texts. He must, rather, be a servant of the pope. One of the most infamousanti-Latin texts, the “Dialogue of Panagiotes with an Azymite,” dates to around theSecond Council of Lyons. It begins with a description of the arrival of a papal envoy inConstantinople. He is met by John Bekkos, who wears a miter and a ring, which, theauthor assures us, are symbols of the pope. The papal envoy is leading a mule with abasket on its back. In the basket is an image of the pope. Both Bekkos and EmperorMichael VIII perform acts of submission in front of this mule. Michael actually leads itby its bridle, an idea familiar to Western medievalists and an allusion to Michael’s earlier,hypocritical submission to Patriarch Arsenios.107 An even more striking example of thissort of condemnation-by-association is the case of Patriarch Gregory II of Cyprus. Inspite of being the person who finally defeated Bekkos, in spite of his sophisticated eluci-dation of the Greek doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, he ran into trouble.His enemies accused him of heresy in that very elucidation, and more than one of them

106 See, e.g., Darrouzes, “Memoire,” para. 30, 63, 65, 66, 75.107 D. J. Geanakoplos, Interaction of the ‘Sibling’ Byzantine and Western Cultures in the Middle Ages and Italian Re-

naissance, 330–1600 (New Haven, Conn., 1976), 158. Greek text ed. A. Vasiliev, Anecdota graeco-byzantina (Mos-cow, 1893), 179.


implied that his error came from his origins on Latin-dominated Cyprus.108 He may havebeen deposed from the patriarchate for entirely political reasons, but a good way tojustify such a deposition was to portray him as a “Latin.”

At the other end of the spectrum, some intellectuals of the Palaiologan period admiredLatin learning and considered it superior to Greek. This shift is symbolized most vividlyby the year 1274, for 1274 is not only the date of the Second Council of Lyons but alsothe date of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas. In other words, Latin theologians werereaching their peak. Popular opposition to the Latins was not significantly changed bythis, but the opposition of intellectuals took on a different tone. Unlike Photios, Theo-phylact of Ohrid, or Peter of Antioch, intellectuals of the Palaiologan period were notcertain of their own superior theological reasoning. Some among them even decidedthat the Latins had surpassed them.109 The Greek delegation at the Council of Florence(1438–39) was not condescending; it was defensive. The complaint used to be Latinbarbarism; for the opponents of reunion at Florence, the complaint was that the Latinswere oversubtle.110

Conclusion

Byzantine identity was not a simple matter. Modern historians struggle for ways todescribe what made Byzantine people Byzantine. Was theirs an “ethnic” identity? a reli-gious identity? an imperial identity? Perhaps, instead of searching for a single definitionthat works once and for all, we need to acknowledge that our confusion is justified. Agroup of people defines itself and is defined as much by whom it excludes as by whomit includes. In both senses, the people we misleadingly call Byzantines did not alwaysagree on a definition of themselves. Even where they did agree, the definition had to berefined more than once in their thousand-year history. That refinement of definitionwas always contested. Despite histories written by the victors, which often pretend that

108 Nikephoros Gregoras, Byzantina Historia, ed. L. Schopen, CSHB 19, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1829), 165. Germantrans. and comm., Rhomaische Geschichte, J. L. van Dieten, Bibliothek der griechischen Literatur 4, vol. 1 (Stutt-gart, 1973), 148. Hussey, Orthodox Church, 248–49.

109 I. Sevcenko, “Intellectual Repercussions of the Council of Florence,” ChHist 24 (1955): 294; repr. inidem, Ideology, Letters and Culture of the Byzantine World (London, 1982), no. , with new pagination, 6. SinceSevcenko’s seminal article, a great deal has been published regarding Greek reception of Latin theology in thePalaiologan period. A full bibliography is not possible here, but the interested reader might begin with the fol-lowing: H. Hunger, Prochoros Kydones, Ubersetzung von acht Briefen des Hl. Augustinus (Vienna, 1984); F. Kianka’sarticles on Demetrios Kydones (note 70 above); R. Flogaus, “Der heimliche Blick nach Westen: Zur Rezep-tion von Augustins De trinitate durch Gregorios Palamas,” JOB 46 (1996): 275–97.

110 Sevcenko, “Repercussions,” 298 (repr. 10). Demetrios Kydones complained that his fellow Greeks, ratherthan learn Latin positions and refute them intelligently, said, “‘The Latins are sophists. They attack us withsophistry, and when one refutes their sophisms, then there is nothing left but blasphemy and absurdity. We,however, stand by the folly of the evangelical message and the simplicity of fishermen. We did not receive Di-vine Revelation clad in worldy wisdom and we do not intend to surrender it to such wisdom, lest we strip theCross of its Christ’” (ed. Mercati, 388; trans. Likoudis, 53).


the challenge came from without, the crucial problems were debates within the empire,among those who considered themselves heirs of Rome and children of Christ.

The iconoclast controversy, for example, despite all efforts to attribute it to Jewish orIslamic influences, seems most likely to have originated within the Christian RomanEmpire. Doubts about the use of icons were certainly related to external influences,especially to the Arab invasions that threatened the very existence of the empire in theearly eighth century. Still, the earliest iconoclasts were Christian bishops in Asia Minor.The history written a century later by the victorious iconodules portrays a true church,staunchly in favor of icons, oppressed by a minority of evil men who tried to force analien doctrine and practice upon the orthodox, but modern historians doubt such anaccount, pointing to evidence that the iconoclasts were popular and that their beliefswere sincerely held and theologically justified. If iconoclasm had been, as its opponentsclaimed, an alien and obviously heinous belief, it would not have caused more than acentury of strife within the empire. Nor would icon veneration have been enshrined atthe center of the Orthodox definition of themselves if it had been uncontested.111

Western European Christians presented another sort of question of identity, for theyhad been citizens of the Roman Empire as recently as the time of Justinian I (527–565)and they were Christians. Nominally, then, they were included in the Byzantine defini-tion of “us.” Minimal contact with Westerners in the eighth to tenth centuries enabledthis status to stand. It was recognized that Westerners were not quite up to Constantino-politan standards. They were rustic cousins, baptized barbarians—but, then, so werepeople in other provinces of the empire. Contact with mercenary soldiers from Scandi-navia simply reinforced this comfortable semi-inclusion and superiority.

But then these rustic cousins began to penetrate the empire in other ways—not justas mercenary soldiers overawed by the empire’s wealth and as occasional papal or imperiallegates, who had contact with few Byzantines. The Crusades and the ambitious venturesof Italian merchants revealed to the Byzantines that their country cousins were strongand self-confident (“arrogant,” the Byzantines tended to say). Sometimes they acted likeenemies. Even when they did not, they had ideas above their station: they actuallyclaimed to have their own emperor of the Romans! This awareness of Latin differencebrought Latins into the center of the ongoing debates about the boundaries of Byzantinesociety. It did so at a time when other groups were presenting similar challenges, espe-cially the Armenians and Syrians who reentered the empire with the conquests of thetenth century.

If all Byzantines had agreed that Westerners were excluded from the ecumenical em-pire and church, there would have been relatively little Greek literature about Latinbeliefs and customs. Probably for the average Constantinopolitan going about his dailybusiness, it was taken for granted that Westerners were different simply because theyspoke different languages and wore different clothes. For the hierarchy of the church,however, the problem was more profound. They could not merely adduce the obviousethnic differences. The church, as Christ’s body, is not supposed to make distinctions

111 For a recent account of the iconoclast controversy that involves this sort of analysis, see J. Herrin, The For-mation of Christendom (Princeton, 1987), 306–43, esp. 331–43.


based on ethnicity, “for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”112 Within the church, then, thestatus of Latins needed clarification. Were they included in the orthodox, catholic Chris-tian church, in spite of their strange customs and odd clothing? Or were they excludedby their own beliefs? Were they, in a word, heretics? It was not an easy question toanswer. As a result, the literature for and against Latin heresy began to pile up. Notsurprisingly, that literature began with issues and definitions that had been used earlieron other groups, hence the centrality of azymes in the 1050s.

The impact of the Crusades on the evolution of Byzantine attitudes toward Latins wasindirect but important. The Crusades made Western Europeans and one’s attitude to-ward them crucial issues for all Byzantines, from highly educated Constantinopolitantheologians to peasants in the Morea. Eastern hostility toward the Latins, including theirstatus as the favorite target of religious polemic, is a result of the Crusades, a “radicaliza-tion” caused by the behavior of their Latin “brothers.” For most people, the Latins be-came a threat to body before they were a threat to soul; religious aversion followedviolent conflict. It is a paradoxical conclusion, but it seems to fit the facts: anti-Latinpolemic in the period of the Crusades is intimately linked to the Crusades, and yet ithardly ever mentions them.

Princeton University

112 Gal. 3:28.

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